Since Tyler (shown here) and I were on the AV Committee for TechExpo this year, I wasn’t able to present. In between show duties, I was able to be a walking “poster” to discuss Google Glass. I had borrowed Duke Web Services Nexus 7 tablet so I was able to “ScreenCast” what the Glass was seeing as well as do a screen picture with my iPhone while looking through the Glass while demonstrating. Fun.
This was about my 3rd day with the unit and it does seem to be getting easier. It is a bit tricky to navigate getting both devices on the network and then making sure you pair them with Bluetooth, but once it got it connected, I just left them both on throughout the day.
Battery life seems to be horrid. Less than one hour of active time before I had to doc the glasses for about an hour. I need to do some additional research on this.
Before the expo, I installed all the basic apps and while I ended up not having time to test the Golf app the in context language translation tool was the mind blowing demonstration I focused on throughout the day.
The accuracy of the translation needs to be verified, however, the proof of technology is AWESOME! Not only the fact that it translates, but it keeps the bullets AND the font approximate AND the background color – all in real time! There was a bit of a trick of being at the right angle and holding still long enough to engage the content.
The core product featured Italian, French, Spanish and German from/to English. Based on feedback I received at the show, I’m going to follow up about Russian and Chinese as those are current needs for some of our programs.
Very, very exciting possibilities early on in this venture.
Oh and yes, I received A LOT of feedback that I ordered the Glass in CAROLINA BLUE. 🙁 My bad.
Looks awesome Steve, thanks for sharing these pics.
A couple of pedagogical uses for Glass that I’ve found:
I saw an Android app called “The Traveler” at at EDUCAUSE regional, they’ve been working on Glassware for it. They’re regularly posting development updates and it’s clear that they’re still focused on classroom/pedagogical use- they discussed importing paths into maps/ real-time interaction with classmates, etc. They’ve experimented with this in study abroad programs and described some really cool experiences in their talk. They have a Google+ page here:
http://bit.ly/1hQyBLM
It’s like “Field Trip,” but differs in that you’re focusing on creating content to be shared, not just receiving it.
The idea of using this not to just passively consume content but to create new immersive experiences for others is a neat idea.
In terms of lectures/tutorials first person video can provide a really personal view for knowledge transfer… ‘Being John Malkovich’ style.
Example: Science lessons through Google Glass (STEMBite)
http://youtu.be/mi-f8kfLHWw
Chris,
Thanks for the mention and glad you were able to see the presentation at Educause! This has been an amazing project to work on, and we’ve accompanied some great trips around the world with our students.
You mentioned the Glass project – well that actually went live a couple months ago. We launched an official Glassware, available to all Glass Explorers, including our students. We purchased 2 pair of Glass to them to use on trips, and are looking forward to our first in-field test as the students return from summer break. The Glassware is a companion to Traveler and allows the students to go hands-free while capturing photos on their trips. The photos can easily be annotated, geo-tagged and shared with a trip, then synced to their mobile device. I definitely have bigger plans for the Glassware, but had to start small and get something through the app review process!
We would love to work with other universities on this project, so if you, or anyone else reading this is interested, please shoot me an email and we’ll start a conversation.
Thanks again!
Kyle
Ball State University
Update – I checked Quest Visual (http://www.questvisual.com) and this is what they said about Russian and Chinese:
Will there be a Russian version?
Yep, we’re working on it!
Will there be a Chinese version?
We’re working on it, though it’s a significant step past the European languages: there’s thousands of characters to recognize, no spaces between words, some words taking multiple characters, different grammar — lots of challenges, but we’re on it!